


build the walls (tear them down)

by santanico



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Dissociation, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 15:30:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1474879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santanico/pseuds/santanico
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wishes Steve’s fingers would leave hard bruises and his teeth would leave scars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	build the walls (tear them down)

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ THIS IF YOU HAVE TRIGGERS!!!
> 
> warnings: fic deals fairly extensively w/torture + medical treatment that bucky experienced as winter soldier. also deals with violent nightmares with fairly violent descriptions of death/murder. bucky experiences some disassociation which could be triggering if that's something that affects you. the dubious consent tag is due to some pretty non-consensual touching that can be read as sexual but it is NOT between steve and bucky. also suicidal thoughts on bucky's part.
> 
> prompt insp from [stardust_rain](http://archiveofourown.org/users/stardust_rain): He has good nights and bad nights, but the worst of Bucky's nightmares aren't the ones where he's an assassinating random civilians; from those he wakes up shaking. It's the ones when he's trying to kill Steve where doesn't want to wake up again at all.

His name is James Buchanan Barnes, and everyone calls him Bucky. He tells them _call me Bucky_ because it’s what he’s known.

His name is James Buchanan Barnes, and they forge metal into his skin, brand him with their star, and rip apart every shred of his core self.

His name is James Buchanan Barnes, and he _is_ the Winter Soldier.

The Winter Soldier crawls through a window of an apartment in Brooklyn. He has a knife in his hands. He is slow and careful and he approaches the target. One stab wound to the top of the spine, then spin the target around and lunge the knife deep into his lungs.

He wakes up to his own scream, and the reason he doesn’t fall on the floor is because big hands wrap around his wrist and press him down against the bed.

“You’re okay – Bucky, it was just a dream, it was just a dream. You’re okay.”

Bucky is still screaming, though his voice feels hollow and he can’t hear himself, he just knows he’s making sound because for the split second he opens his eyes he sees Steve cringing.

So he thrusts himself, all of his weight at once, pushing against Captain America’s chest. They fumble on the floor, Steve reacting immediately to the aggression and wrestling Bucky to his hands and knees. Bucky feels his own chest thud against the carpet and listens to his own breath being knocked away.

Everything goes still.

“Shit.”

-

Bucky is happy to get three hours of sleep, even when that sleep isn’t peaceful.

It could be worse.

He sometimes watches Steve sleep in the bed next to him, and wonders what he did to deserve this.

He wasn’t a good person in his past life, he remembers that much. He wasn’t a bad person, either, he supposes; otherwise Steve Rogers would have left him long before the opposite happened. But Bucky Barnes was never a hero in the way that Steve was. He never had the guts. Never really wanted to enlist in the first place.

Bucky licks his lips and presses his face into the pillow. Memories are pieces-parts now, not real, not a part of him. He isn’t Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers’ best friend, Sergeant in the 107th. He’s a man with broken memories who’s lying next to Captain America and trying to keep from screaming because he doesn’t want to repeat the violence of the past.

When Bucky turns his head on the pillow to watch Steve again, Steve’s eyes are open.

“What time is it?” Steve asks, voice groggy.

“Four,” Bucky says. He isn’t sure how he knows.

Steve looks at him. “Go back to sleep.”

“Don’t want to.”

Steve smiles and closes his eyes again. Bucky waits until he’s sure Steve is asleep (his breathing is deep and through his nose, his hands are relaxed and resting on his chest) to press up close to his side.

Steve is warm. Steve is certain.

-

_Eliminate the hostages._

His trigger finger doesn’t even hesitate. Four shots. A silencer in the gun. Bullets through the brains of civilians caught up in a war that doesn’t really care about them.

His breath comes heavy through the mask, fogs hot in front of his face.

Sometimes the Winter Soldier forgets that he is not ice itself.

The voice hollows out his insides. _The target is headed northeast. Stop him at all costs. Take whatever steps necessary to eliminate._

The Winter Soldier is still, until he isn’t.

-

Steve swallows his screams.

Steve rejects the screams from the Winter Soldier, and turns them into hushed moans, the arching of a spine.

-

Bucky curls his fingers into Steve’s shirt.

The shower runs hot, steam coming out from under the crack in the door, and Bucky lifts the shirt and buries his face in the cloth.

-

He chokes as he breathes in poison dust.

The Winter Soldier is designed to forge onward.

A rattling, unclear voice screams in his head - _You’re here for the man in the blue. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him._ The words are spoken in Russian, in an unfamiliar voice. It fades to hot white static, rushing out of Winter Soldier’s skull.

He finds Steve Rogers, the man in blue, awake in a cell on the edge of the earth. His eyes are cold. He whispers something in French.

The Winter Soldier blows his brain out with bullets that are too big, and he watches as blood splatters across the walls.

He wakes up with his metal fingers curling around Steve Rogers’ throat, watches with eyes wide and mouth open in a silent scream as Steve pries them from his skin.

“No more,” Bucky whispers, rolling his eyes back and shuddering as Steve falls heavy on top of him. “Never again.”

-

Steve’s breath hitches and Bucky hovers in place.

“Put your hands on my waist,” Bucky whispers, steels his voice after the first few quivers. Steve is staring up at him but he doesn’t hesitate, hands resting firm on Bucky’s sides.

Bucky breathes. The Winter Soldier _breathes_. He focuses on air in his lungs. The tragedy. His face, his name, painted in textbooks. _You used to be a hero. Now you’re just cold._

He flattens himself on Steve’s chest, listens to the steadiness of Captain America’s heartbeat. Steve’s hands splay hard and protective over the curve of his back.

“Steady now,” Steve Rogers whispers. The Winter Soldier closes his eyes. “Bucky…”

-

Steve’s lips trace the scars in his flesh and blood shoulder.

“I’m broken.”

“Maybe,” Steve whispers, his tongue sliding over metal and skin. “And maybe you’re not alone.”

Bucky takes a deep breath. “Is this a dream?”

Steve’s fingers cling to his thigh. Bucky shifts, rolling his hips forward. Steve sucks a hard bruise into his throat and Bucky leans back.

“Only if it’s a good one,” Steve whispers, bites Bucky’s bottom lip and then kisses him roughly.

Bucky sighs.

-

“I’m not who you think I am.”

Steve’s hands are firm on his chest. He pushes the Winter Soldier down on the bed. He kisses every patch of skin and undoes his pants.

“And neither am I,” Steve says, pressing his face to the soldier’s cool skin.

He holds the gun in his hand and as Steve sits back, smiles, the Winter Soldier shoots him in the throat.

He wakes up screaming, and maybe it’s Steve’s hands that make him shudder, maybe it’s memories of the dreams. Memories of the bullet wounds, the scars in Steve Rogers’ side, the cuts that bloom red across his face when Bucky rakes his metal fingers over that fine face.

No one questions it out loud, and Steve still touches Bucky and it’s intimate, quiet, soft.

-

“When I fall asleep,” Bucky whispers into the dark, “I have terrors.”

“I know,” Steve whispers, his mouth soft on Bucky’s neck. Always gentle, careful, so different from the rough hands that cut him open and shoved him onto cold metal, that pressed needles into his skin and bones, that made him cold and removed his vulnerability.

Sometimes, he wishes Steve would stop caring.

He wishes Steve’s fingers would leave hard bruises and his teeth would leave scars.

They never do.

-

Winter Soldier slits Captain America’s throat.

 _Mission complete_ , and his own voice sounds like soft snow and hard static. He watches the blood wash from Captain America’s gash, his eyes wide, blood now sputtering from his lips. He struggles to speak. Winter Soldier smiles.

A warm voice on the end of the line says, _Good boy, come home now._

-

Alexander Pierce says, “You changed everything,” and the Winter Soldier nods. Pierce has calloused palms. He cups the Winter Soldier’s face and whispers, “You’ve done so well.” Strokes his thumb over Winter Soldier’s bottom lip. “It’s time for you to rest.”

When Bucky wakes up, it’s Steve’s thumb stroking his bottom lip, holding him still.

He sobs, and it wrecks his body.

-

“I remember…the first time I kissed you.”

Steve smiles. “It was when I was small.”

“You were…so small.” He doesn’t smile, though he feels a warmth bloom in his chest, where he thinks his heart should be. The word that comes to mind is _affection_.

For some reason, Steve likes him unclothed.

Steve peels the shirt from his skin, doesn’t seem bothered by the cold sweat that breaks along Bucky’s chest. Doesn’t mind the aged scars, the bruises that never heal in the wake of stab wounds and punishing kicks to the gut.

“Tell me what else you remember,” Steve says, and his voice is small.

Bucky initially hesitates. Maybe he gets lost in his own thoughts. He remembers cold metal against his bloodied shoulder. He remembers searing pain and agony and he remembers the affectionate touch of a man who admired his own work. He remembers being touched and remembers thinking _no no no no no no_ but letting the hand stroke over his good arm. He remembers a strange man running a razor along his face and clearing off hair. Telling him to sit down. Opening his mouth and feeling hard rubber between his teeth.

Bucky yelps when Steve’s teeth scrape along his good shoulder. Steve sits back, whispers “I’m sorry,” and then Bucky reaches for him again, yanks Steve back and kisses him.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Bucky murmurs against Steve’s mouth, lifting his good hand and grasping Steve’s hair. “Don’t leave me again.”

Steve’s lips ghost over his skin, leaving nothing untouched, even the cold metal of Bucky’s fingertips. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” whispered like a prayer into Bucky’s skin. Like a promise.

-

Bucky finds that the days are long. But the nights are longer.

When he wakes up from nightmares where he watches Steve die in a hundred different ways, he considers finding a bullet to lodge in his own brain. It would be easier that way. Quiet. His mind would be quiet.

He doesn’t.

He lets Steve kiss him. He says _yes_ when Steve asks to touch. He rocks his hips into Steve’s palm, comes apart and shudders to a halt. Steve kisses him until he kisses back.

The Winter Soldier is still there, on the frays, waiting to strike.

But he never does.

-

The dreams don’t stop. They just don’t hurt as much.

Bucky licks his way into Steve’s mouth, holds his face, curls his fingers around Steve’s wrists. Steve smiles against his lips, says, “You’re so warm,” in a mumble because Bucky is still kissing him, and they wrap around each other, interlock like they were made for each other.

That’s when Bucky knows.

He _is_ the Winter Soldier.

But he’s also James Buchanan Barnes.

He doesn’t remember everything, wouldn’t even if he had never fallen, but the important parts – the parts where Steve stands up and Bucky finds him broken apart in alley ways – those parts stay. 

“I hated you. Sometimes.”

The lamp is on. They’re in bed together. It’s common, now.

“What?”

“You…came back. In that – suit. And you…changed everything.”

“Bucky…”

He breathes out, closes his eyes. “I loved you so much. But I hated you for not knowing…”

“I’m sorry.” Steve’s voice is dark. “I wanted to be there. With you. To see…the war as it was.”

“I would have done anything for you,” Bucky says. he stares at the ceiling, feels Steve’s lips again, brushing against his jaw. “I guess I did.”

Steve chokes. Presses his nose into Bucky’s skin. Then Bucky feels Steve’s fingers in his own, in the ones that still prickle when touched. Steve squeezes his hand. Steve sobs into his skin.

Bucky thought Steve was the strong one.

-

The nightmares linger. Steve has them too, sometimes. He doesn’t say it but Bucky knows, feels Steve roll out of bed some days when Bucky is pretending to be asleep. Then he listens to the shower and listens to quiet sobs. He pretends to never hear them as well, kisses Steve in the morning and says, “Thank you,” because it’s all he knows.

And Steve sometimes looks at him like he’s a light instead of a shadow.

Bucky doesn’t think about that.

The nightmares linger, and so does the Winter Soldier.

But with those things, comes Steve.

Sometimes it’s a trade off. Sometimes the nightmares win and Bucky wakes up screaming. Sometimes the nightmares lead to desperate kissing and Bucky begging to be touched.

Sometimes it’s a trade off, and sometimes Steve’s touch wins.


End file.
